The website for Halesworth, a Suffolk market town known for brewing and malting, boasts that it gives local people "the advantages of the new millennium, while secure in the roots of the past". When it comes to broadband, however, some residents are still stuck in the last century.

Halesworth's Mount Pleasant has topped the list of Britain's 50 slowest streets for broadband. With an average of 0.128 megabits per second, its residents must wait for 48 hours to finish downloading a film. A two-and-a-half minute song takes an hour and a half to transfer.

Slow broadband is not confined to rural locations. Streets in Glasgow, Southampton and Chislehurst in Greater London all feature in the top 50, according to the price comparison site uSwitch, which compiled the list by speed-testing 1.5m streets between March and August this year, using technology on its own website.

"Many of the streets on the list aren't in the far-flung countryside, but rather in more urban areas, nearer to exchanges and where we would expect to see higher download speeds across the board," said uSwitch technology expert Ernest Doku.

England's southern counties perform particularly badly, with West Sussex and Hampshire accounting for a quarter of the UK's 20 slowest locations. Faraday Avenue in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, may be named after the inventor of the electric motor, but it has the fourth worst broadband, with a speed of 0.182Mbps.

The average speed is 6.8Mbps, but not one street on the list has a speed over half a megabyte – the 50th is Bloomsfield in Burwell, Cambridge, with 0.454Mbps.

By comparison, residents of Britain's fastest town, Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, enjoy average speeds of nearly 19Mbps. They can download a song in two seconds and a full-length feature film takes five minutes.

Britain's fastest street was named as Stansfield Road in Hyde, Tameside, where residents enjoy average speeds of nearly 78.8Mbps, followed by White Road, Oxford (66.705Mbps), Highfields Close in Dunstable (63.579Mbps) and Heather Shaw in Trowbridge (59.797Mbps). Though uSwitch acknowledged these might be "untypically high due to provider trials".

Doku added: "While many areas of the country are already benefiting from the considerable investment into super-fast fibre-optic networks, our research highlights the plight of households at the other end of the spectrum, struggling with download speeds so poor that in some cases it can hardly be considered a broadband service at all."

He advises customers to check their speeds regularly to make sure they are getting the best package for their area and change providers if they are badly served.

Those looking for instant internet gratification could move to Herne Hill or Morden in London, Kidderminster in Worcestershire or North Shields, which all feature among the 10 fastest locations in the UK.

The 50 slowest UK streets for broadband

Rank

Street name and location

Download speed (Mb/s)

1

Mount Pleasant, Halesworth, Suffolk

0.128

2

Forestfield, Horsham, West Sussex

0.134

3

Inchkeith Drive, Dunfermline, Fife

0.169

4

Faraday Avenue, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire

0.182

5

Baird Avenue, Kilwinning, Ayrshire

0.225

6

Wheatears Drive, Romsey, Hampshire

0.242

7

Furzy Park, Haverfordwest, Dyfed

0.254

8

Calmore Drive, Totton, Hampshire

0.267

9

Mowbray Grove, Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland

0.274

10

Colledge Close, Brinklow, Warwickshire

0.279

11

Kimbells Close, Shabbington, Buckinghamshire

0.282

12

Glenbuck Avenue, Glasgow

0.289

13

Common Hill, Pulborough, West Sussex

0.296

14

John O'Gaunts Way, Belper, Derbyshire

0.298

15

Kenrick Square, Bletchingly, Surrey

0.319

16

Marlings Park Avenue, Chislehurst, Greater London

0.324

17

Silver Street, Chalford, Gloucestershire

0.328

18

Spinners Drive, St Helens, Merseyside

0.334

19

Raleigh Close, Churchdown, Gloucestershire

0.335

20

W Way, Littlehampton, West Sussex

0.335

21

Cromwell Avenue, Findern, Derbyshire

0.337

22

Greyson Avenue, Lowestoft, Suffolk

0.345

23

Phlap Street, South Hetton, County Durham

0.349

24

George Road, Water Orton, Birmingham

0.357

25

Bexleigh Avenue, St Leonards, East Sussex

0.373

26

Canon Close, Ilkeston, Derbyshire

0.383

27

Tylers Way, Chalford, Gloucestershire

0.383

22

Ullswater Road, Urmston, Manchester

0.384

29

Sutton Lane, Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire

0.384

30

Langside Gardens, West Calder, West Lothian

0.384

31

Pinfold Close, Cockermouth, Cumbria

0.386

32

Mithras Gardens, Walton, Buckinghamshire

0.388

33

Broadwaters Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk

0.396

34

Riverbank, Dunmurry, Belfast, County Antrim

0.399

35

Church Street, Hayfield, Derbyshire

0.411

36

Warren Field, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, West Midlands

0.421

37

Woodland Grove, Beeston, Nottinghamshire

0.422

38

Sokeman Close, Stony Stratford, MK, Buckinghamshire

0.426

39

Mount Pleasant, Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire

0.430

40

Elmsdale Road, Hartshorne, Derbyshire

0.431

41

Yew Tree Avenue, Pemberton, Manchester, Wigan

0.432

42

Fairwinds Place, Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire

0.435

43

Pollards Moor Road, Copythorne, Southampton, Hampshire

0.440

44

Tern Way, Wirral, Merseyside

0.440

45

Glamorgan Road, Hartlepool, Cleveland

0.441

46

Darren Road, Berry Hill, Coleford, Gloucestershire

0.443

47

Adrian Avenue, Motherwell, North Lanarkshire

0.445

48

North Road, Lakenheath, Brandon, Suffolk

0.445

49

Chadwell Avenue, Southampton,

0.451

50

Bloomsfield, Burwell, Cambridge

0.45

Source: uSwitch.com

The 10 fastest towns are Leamington Spa in Warwickshire (18.865), Welling in Greater London (18.426), Herne Hill in London (17.897), Kidderminster in Worcestershire (17.369), Northwich in Cheshire (17.219), North Shields in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (16.984), Oldbury in Worcestershire (16.923), Broxbourne in Herefordshire (16.699), Morden in Greater London (16.584) and Scunthorpe in North Lincolnshire (16.379)

• This article was amended on 20 September 2011. The original referred to "megabytes a second". This has been corrected.